The Ontology of Mind and Mental Action

Matthew Soteriou

The Mind's Construction

The Ontology of Mind and Mental Action

Matthew Soteriou

Description

Philosophers working on the ontology of mind have highlighted various distinctions that can be drawn between the ways in which different aspects of our minds fill time. For example, they note that whereas some elements of our mental lives obtain over time, others unfold over time, and some continue to occur throughout intervals of time. Matthew Soteriou explores ways in which such distinctions can be put to work in helping to inform philosophical accounts of both sensory and cognitive aspects of consciousness. Part One of The Mind's Construction argues that work in the ontology of mind that focuses on distinctions of temporal character has much to contribute to philosophical accounts of the phenomenology of various elements of sensory consciousness--e.g. the phenomenology of perceptual experience, bodily sensation, and perceptual imagination. Part Two argues that these ontological considerations can inform our understanding of conscious thinking, and the form of self-conscious consciousness that we have as subjects capable of engaging in such activity, by helping to account for and explain the respect in which agency is exercised in conscious thinking. This in turn, it is argued, can illuminate the more general issue of the place and role of mental action in an account of the metaphysics of mind.

The Mind's Construction

The Ontology of Mind and Mental Action

Matthew Soteriou

Table of Contents

AcknowledgementsIntroductionPart I. Sensory Consciousness 1. The Manifest Image of Sensory Consciousness2. Occurrence, State, Content, and Character3. The Phenomenology and Ontology of Bodily Sensation4. Temporal Transparency and Perceptual Acquaintance5. Structural Features of Perceptual Acquaintance6. Conscious Contact with Time and the Continuity of Consciousness7. Perceptual Imagination and Perceptual Recollection8. Introspection and Knowing What it's likePart II. Conscious Thinking 9. The Place of Mental Action in the Metaphysics of Mind10. The Ontology of Conscious Thinking11. 'The mind uses its own freedom': Suppositional Reasoning and Self-Critical Reflection12. Mental Action, Autonomy, and the Perspective of Practical Reason13. Intention-in-Action and the Epistemology of Mind14. Reconsidering the Place of Mental action in the Metaphysics of Mind15. Thinking and BeliefReferencesIndex

The Mind's Construction

The Ontology of Mind and Mental Action

Matthew Soteriou

Author Information

Matthew Soteriou, University of Warwick

Matthew Soteriou is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Warwick. His main research interests are in the philosophy of mind, the philosophy of action, and epistemology, with a particular focus on perception, mental action and the ontology of mind. He is currently Editor of the Aristotelian Society.

The Mind's Construction

The Ontology of Mind and Mental Action

Matthew Soteriou

Reviews and Awards

"The Mind's Construction makes light dawn across vast swathes of philosophy of action, epistemology, philosophy of perception and philosophy of consciousness. It is a marvellous book, with which it is absolutely impossible to remain unimpressed." -- Mind